ABSTRACT
Ethnographic studies of political activist groups that employ anti-democratic practices such as illegal demonstrations or violence can help us to understand why people join such groups and how their views and actions take form. Since leaders have a more independent role, they are in a sense also more marginal than the other activists. The far right activists were accustomed to outsiders trying to gain access to information about them in order to attack or break up the scene. Ethnographic studies of the far right face many of the same methodological challenges as studies of criminal groups or gangs. Many research projects on the far right have felt the need to discuss ethical dilemmas in detail. Long-term fieldwork in communities of criminal, violent scenes can provide useful data. Ethnographic research and being together with people for extended periods is important in addition to studies that employ only textual data, as is common in studies of the far right or extreme groups.
